


set your heart right

by mayerwien



Category: New Girl
Genre: Canon Compliant, Canon Universe, F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Humor, Friends to Lovers, Friendship, Friendship/Love, Gen, Humor, Normal Life, Season/Series 01
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-01
Updated: 2019-02-01
Packaged: 2019-10-20 01:31:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,620
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17612888
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mayerwien/pseuds/mayerwien
Summary: “You know what nonstop hiccups are a symptom of, Nick? Brain tumors.” Jess looks sincerely distraught. “If you don’t stop hiccuping, it means you coulddie.”Nick runs his hands down his face. God, if they all had to be put into houses like in Harry Potter, he’d probably wind up in the evil green snake people house, and Jess would definitely be in...that other one, the mysterious one that’s all fluffy with badgers and sunflowers and junk. Why is shelikethis? “Jess,” Nick says patiently. “I’m not—hic—I’m not gonna die.”“Well, after your cancer scare, I’m not taking any chances.” Jess reaches over the table and pinches Nick’s nose, while simultaneously shoving a full glass of water at him so the rim collides with his teeth. “Here, drink from the far side while holding your breath.”--or, Nick and Jess keep trying to fix things for each other.





	set your heart right

**Author's Note:**

  * For [puppybutt](https://archiveofourown.org/users/puppybutt/gifts).



> Yep, I go here now. 
> 
> Knocked this out in a couple of hours; apologies for the rust, etc. Set loosely during Season 1 because it's all I've watched so far, so please don't tell me anything about what happens in canon past that! I fully intend to finish shoving this whole damn series into my eyeballs even if it kills me
> 
> Title from "In Repair" by John Mayer.

“Jess,” Nick says desperately. “I swear to— _hic—_ swear to god, I’m fine, just— _hic_ —just leave me alone.”

Shaking her head, Jess crosses the most recent item (“bite down on a lemon”) off her list with her purple Sharpie and moves on to the next. “No. We’re not giving up until we’ve tried everything that’s on here. My mom used to do all of these with me, one of them _has_ to be the one that works.”

Nick groans and buries his face in his hands.

The thing about Jess is that she’s a chronic fixer. An aggressive nice-maker. In any given situation, she’s incapable of _not_ doing something to try to help. Nick thinks about the time he was down with the flu and she left a bowl of homemade soup outside his door, so that when he opened the door he put his foot in it, and then he was forced to change his only pair of clean socks. (For the record, because of that incident, Nick still currently has exactly zero pairs of clean socks.) And Jess’ bizarrely overwhelming need to take care of him is why the two of them have been sitting in the kitchen for the past hour, while she tries to get Nick to stop hiccuping with her Official List of Hiccup Cures.

 _“Have someone scare you,”_ Jess reads off the list. She pauses and looks up at him, blinking.

Nick laughs. “Yeah. Right. Like— _hic_ —like you’re going to be able to scare m—“

“PUTTING DRY-CLEAN-ONLY CLOTHES IN THE WASHING MACHINE!” Schmidt yells as he jumps out from around the corner, arms raised.

“AUGH,” Nick yells back, falling off his stool.

“What, is that not scary enough?” Schmidt glances at Jess, who makes a _keep going_ motion. Schmidt flails his arms at Nick. “EXPIRED HUMMUS! IMPROPERLY FOLDED FITTED SHEETS!”

“Schmidt, go— _hic_ —go _away!”_ Nick slaps wildly at him until he backs off.

Sniffing, Schmidt smooths down the creases in his shirt. “Fine, but when the doctors tell you that your diaphragm is broken beyond repair, don’t come crying to me for a transplant,” he says haughtily, and stalks out of the loft.

“You know what nonstop hiccups are a symptom of, Nick? _Brain tumors.”_ Jess looks sincerely distraught. “If you don’t stop hiccuping, it means you could _die.”_

Nick runs his hands down his face. God, if they all had to be put into houses like in Harry Potter, he’d probably wind up in the evil green snake people house, and Jess would definitely be in...that other one, the mysterious one that’s all fluffy with badgers and sunflowers and junk. Why is she _like_ this? “Jess,” Nick says patiently. “I’m not— _hic—_ I’m not gonna die.”

“Well, after your cancer scare, I’m not taking any chances.” Jess reaches over the table and pinches Nick’s nose, while simultaneously shoving a full glass of water at him so the rim collides with his teeth. “Here, drink from the far side while holding your breath.”

Nick lurches backward off his stool again like she’s burned him. (Most of the water winds up on the front of his shirt.) “STOP TRYING TO CURE MY HICCUPS, JESS— _hic_ —A, THEY’LL GO AWAY ON THEIR OWN.”

“For the last time, I am on an ADJUSTED SCHEDULE,” Winston shouts from inside his bedroom.

“Okay! Okay, just one more, just one more thing.” Jess squints at the bottom of her list. ”It says I have to tell you—that if you hiccup one more time, I’ll give you something you really want.”

 _“Hic_ —what?” Nick is trying to mop up the water on his shirt with a paper towel, but of course he bought the cheap, shitty kind of paper towel that’s just flaking off onto his shirt in giant chunks. “How’s— _hic_ —how’s that work? Seems kinda— _hic_ —backwards.”

Jess tilts her head at him. Her purple Sharpie is tucked crookedly behind her ear, and a few locks of wavy hair are falling in front of it, outside of the arm of her glasses—and Nick thinks how easy it would be, to just reach over and fix the Sharpie and tuck her hair behind her ear for her. “What’s something you really want, Nick?” Jess asks.

“Um,” Nick says. His mouth is weirdly dry. “...A million dollars?”

Jess folds her arms and says decisively, “Miller, if you hiccup one more time, I solemnly swear to give you a million dollars.”

And—no hiccup. Nick frowns, thumps his chest, experimentally takes a slow deep breath. “Oh, come on,” he says. “This can’t be the one that works. There’s no way.”

The smug grin on Jess’ face is a mile wide. “Is that the sound of you talking in full, uninterrupted sentences I hear?”

 _“Dammit.”_ Nick scowls at her harder. Then, deciding it’s worth a shot, he opens his mouth and says deliberately, “Hic.”

“Nice try-y-y,” Jess sings as she saunters out of the kitchen.

 

\--

 

“Thanks for helping us with this,” Jess says. They’re in the school auditorium; she’s sitting on top of the piano, rapping her heels gently against the wood, while on stage left, Nick is building the staircase for the middle schoolers’ production of _Cabaret._

Nick shrugs. “Hey, when your set guy goes skiing in the Poconos and breaks both his legs, your set guy goes skiing in the Poconos and breaks both his legs.” He leans in, squinting at the plywood riser he’s working on, and continues tightening the screw.

Jess looks around proudly at her kids. The props department is painting the Kit Kat Klub sign for the backdrop, while the ensemble rehearses their jazz hands in the aisles and the girl playing Sally Bowles tries on a costume that is entirely too low in the front to be principal-approved. This musical is going to be great. “So,” Jess says brightly, turning back to Nick. “The school’s current budget means we can’t afford to pay you for your services— _but,_ I can pay you in breakfasts every day for a week, and in extra bottles of glitter glue from the art supplies cabinet.”

Nick doesn’t even look up from the staircase, just makes Nick Face at her.

Jess purses her lips. In the back of her head, Jess keeps a list of Things Nick is Known to Make Nick Face At, which begins thus:

  1. Clowns.
  2. Schmidt when he’s wearing his kimono.
  3. Puns that don’t make sense.
  4. Schmidt when he’s relaying the lurid details of his sex life.
  5. Actually, just Schmidt.
  6. Any song by The Chainsmokers.
  7. Key lime pie.



The list is unbelievably long, so much so that there’s probably no point in actually making it, but over time it’s become kind of fun. (Jess is also aware that she herself is on the list somewhere, though it’s still unclear if she’s on it because of any one particular trait of hers, or if she’s on it just as like, her entire self.) “Hey,” Jess says. “How come you’re so good at building this stuff, but back in the loft we have a wooden spoon in our soap dispenser, and a monster from hell living in our garbage disposal?”

“There were very clear diagrams for this staircase,” Nick replies simply. “And also, you can’t compare this to what I do back home. Those repairs aren’t just repairs, they’re _statement pieces.”_ He tightens the last screw and stands up. “And done!”

Sliding off the piano, Jess walks over and studies the finished staircase. “I mean…it looks fine, but are you absolutely-posolutely sure it’s going to hold? Kids are going to be dancing all over this contraption for the next three weeks. Like, vigorous dancing, with high kicks and everything.”

Nick scrunches up his forehead. “What, you don’t trust me to build a reliable staircase?”

Jess gives him a look.

“Fine.” Nick gets up onto the first step of the staircase and holds his hands out. “We’ll test it.”

“I—what?” Jess stares.

“If it can hold two adults, it can definitely hold a bunch of scrawny preteens.” Nick gestures _come here_ with his hands. “C’mon. What’s the matter, kid, scared to dance with me?”

“Pshaw. With you? Never.” Jess gets up onto the step and slips both her hands into Nick’s. His fingers close around hers, warm and familiar—and now they’re face-to-face, Jess tilting her chin up to meet his eyes. And she realizes that Nick’s not grimacing, or pulling away. And for just a second, something actually goes soft in his expression, something that intrigues and scares her at the same time.

“Ready?” Nick asks quietly.

Jess nods. “Go.”

They both start hopping all the way up the steps, testing their weight on each one; then once they reach the top step, they dance their way back down, still holding hands. _“Wilkommen, bienvenue, welcome,”_ Jess belts out as they start stomping up the stairs for the second time.

 _“You are sixteen going on seventeen,”_ Nick hollers back, both clueless and completely off-key.

Jess bursts out laughing and rocks forward on her heels, half-collapsing into him. Then she notices the rest of the auditorium has gone oddly quiet, and when she stops and whips her head around, she sees that all the students are watching them.

 _“Get_ it, Miss Day!” one kid whoops. The others start clapping and whistling.

Mortified, Jess drops Nick’s hands, and they both trip off the last step onto the stage. (Nick actually kind of _leaps_ off the step and away from her, but Jess tries not to read too much into that.) “Uh,” Jess says. “So! It’s a functional staircase.”

“Mm-hmm!” Nick says, nodding vigorously. His jaw is tense. “Yup, they are—definitely stairs.”

“You did a really good job.” Jess offers him a smile. “Thanks. I mean it.”

“Sure, whatever, anytime.” Nick clears his throat and steps back, thumbing over his shoulder. “Hey, listen, I’m starving, I’m just gonna—grab something from the vending machine. Want anything?”

“If you’re getting M&Ms,” Jess says, forcing more lightness into her voice, “I’ll eat all the orange ones you don’t want.”

Nick relaxes visibly. “I’m telling you, there’s something weird about the orange ones,” he says, shaking his head as he crosses the stage. “That’s not a natural color for an M&M.”

Jess leans against the piano and grins, watching appreciatively as Nick hops off the stage and strolls down the aisle. Say what you want about his yuck faces, or his terrible dancing or his inability to distinguish between Broadway musicals—but the man does do a good half-tuck, and that at least counts for something.

 

\--

 

His name is Keith.

His name is Keith, and he’s a literature professor with great hair, and he hasn’t even been coming to the bar a week when Jess notices him. She’s still pretty broken up over Russell, so Nick thinks a distraction would do her some good.

“You want me to introduce you?” he asks as he polishes a glass. Nick glances from Jess to Keith, who’s alone at his table reading an obnoxiously thick novel that’s probably by someone Russian and dead. Across the bar, Winston puts down his drink and slowly turns his head toward Nick.

“Would you?” Jess’ face lights up. She came straight from work, so her hair is still clipped up in a messy ponytail, and there are smudges of chalk along her jaw. “Oh, wait,” she says, leaning over the counter. “Can you introduce me but, like, in a cool way?”

“In a _cool_ way?” Nick repeats. “What, you want me to write the location of the dead drop on a napkin and slide it over to him? Lean in and whisper to him _come with me if you want to live?_ Do you want a code name? Do I get a shoe phone?”

“Just—“ Jess gestures vaguely. “Just when you’re pointing me out to him, can you make me seem, you know.” She drops her voice several octaves and angles one shoulder at him. “Sexy, and alluring. Wink wink.”

“Jess,” Nick says, laughing as he reaches for another glass. “You don’t need my help to be sexy and alluring…”

Winston chokes.

“…you dumbass,” Nick finishes quickly. “Look, I’ll go over there and give him a nudge if you want me to, but you know you’re perfectly capable of just introducing yourself.”

“Ugh, but I’m not _dressed_ for seduction tonight,” Jess groans, thunking her head down on the bar. “I’m not even wearing any of my cute pairs of jeans. These are my Sad Jeans, Nick. My _Sad Jeans.”_

Nick rolls his eyes, then reaches over, grasps her by the shoulders, and firmly steers her out of her seat. “Jessica Day,” he says, raising his voice, and ignoring the fact that Winston is looking from him to Jess and back again. “You are going to go to the bathroom for five minutes, and you are going to powder your nose, or put sparkly gunk on your eyelids, or whatever it is that women do to look nice and feel better about themselves, which I don’t know the specifics of because I’m an idiot. And then you are gonna come back out here, and you are gonna go over there, and knock his goddamn socks off. _Okay?”_

 _“Okay!”_ Jess declares, and stomps off to the bathroom with determination. When she comes back she’s dusted the chalk off her collar, and reapplied her lip-whatever, and let her hair down and shaken it out.

“Homina homina homina,” Nick says, grinning.

Jess puts one hand on her hip, cocking her head to the side. “I will wear zis one in Piccadilly,” she says in a terrible Russian accent, grinning back.

Nick laughs. “Go get ‘em, tiger.”

After Jess has crossed the room to Keith’s table, Nick turns to Winston, who’s been boring a hole in the side of his head for the past ten minutes with a great big Knowing Look. “Okay, _what?”_ Nick demands.

“What was _that?”_ Winston asks, eyebrows shooting all the way up to the top of his forehead.

Nick grabs his Boston shaker. “What was what? It was nothing. It was perfectly normal behavior. From a friend helping a friend.”

“Okay,” Winston says like he doesn’t believe him.

“Exactly,” Nick says through gritted teeth. “It’s okay. It’s nothing.” He glances over at Jess, who is seated across from Keith now. The book he was reading is nowhere in sight, and Keith is saying something that’s making Jess laugh. Nick pushes down the odd queasiness in his stomach, and focuses on rattling up a margarita for the pretty girl at the end of the bar.

Nick is happy for Jess when she bounces into the kitchen the next morning, announcing that Keith is _great_ and that the two of them have agreed to keep seeing each other. Nick is there to nod and make jibes and groan when Jess tells him about all their dates to museums and poetry readings, and how Keith actually kind of is the type of guy she dreamed about in high school. Nick is there for Jess when she and Keith break up three months later, and she’s curled up in the corner of the sofa not even covering her eyes while the four of them watch The Walking Dead, because she’s just sort of staring blankly at the screen without really seeing it.

And Nick aches for her, and needs her so badly to be okay, and has a thousand different things he wishes he could tell her—but all he can do for now is throw a Dorito at her, and kick her leg off the sofa and tell her to stop encroaching on his space.

“Why are you such a _jerk_ to me all the time?” Jess demands, slapping him on the shoulder and kicking her leg right back into his space so it’s crossed over his leg.

Nick punches her on the arm. “You’re the jerk, you jerkface.”

“Nyaaah,” Jess says like a cranky prospector, hunkering down and folding her arms.

“Nyaaaah.” Nick passes her the bag of Doritos. Jess takes a handful, and just before she retreats back into the folds of her robe, he catches a smile forming at the edge of her mouth.

 

\--

 

“Happy birthday, Cece!” Jess sings, locking her arms around Cece’s neck. “Listen to meee, using my outdoor voice indoors because it’s your _birrrthdaaaay!”_

“Ugh, you’re ridiculous and I love you,” Cece shouts back, wrapping her arms around Jess’ waist. She lifts Jess a full inch off the ground before kissing her on the cheek and letting her go.

Cece’s apartment is packed tonight, not just with her model friends, but with some of her friends from college and a whole bunch of her cousins. Nick is off trying to flirt with some girl who accidentally stabbed his foot with her stiletto heel, Winston is tearing it up on the dance floor, and Schmidt is probably having a conniption somewhere because of how gorgeous Cece looks with her new haircut. But it starts feeling a little too hot in this crowd, so Jess decides to bring her drink outside and onto the fire escape.

Sitting squarely on the middle step, Jess leans back against the railing even if it smells suspiciously like pee, and tilts her face up to the night sky and the cool gust of wind that’s tumbling by. It was rough at first, she thinks, having to start her life over—but it’s nights like this that she remembers how lucky she got. How thankful she is for the friends she’s made, and the one she’s kept, and for things like this really nice fruity drink in her hand.

She’s startled when the fire escape door swings open not long after, and the person who pokes his head through is Nick—glancing around for a second before realizing she’s there. “Oh, hey,” he says, sounding kind of out of breath. “I was looking for you.”

Jess blinks. “You were? Why?”

“Why? Nothing, I just—I dunno, I was looking for you.” Nick steps through and closes the door. “Room for one more?” he asks. Jess pats the metal step next to her, and he settles onto it, carefully leaning back against the opposite railing.

For a while, they don’t say anything, but in the comfortable sort of way. Nick rolls his beer bottle around in his hand, and then asks, “You ever feel like we’re getting too old for this kind of party?”

Jess scrunches her mouth up and says in her best grandma voice, “Old? What are you talkin’ about, old? We’re in the prime of our lives.” She reaches over and pinches Nick’s cheek. “Why, have you taken a look in the mirror lately? ‘Cause you’re a real dish!”

Nick chuckles. “Thanks, dollface,” he replies gruffly. “You ain’t so bad yourself.”

Jess makes a gimme hand for Nick’s bottle, and they swap drinks; the beer is slightly warm, and Jess lets it slide slowly over her tongue and down her throat, warming her insides. Nick briefly parks the paper umbrella from her glass between his teeth, like he’s the rugged hero in a Western. After another stretch of quiet, Jess says, “I know I promised not to ask you about this, after I asked the first time, but…”

“Jess,” Nick says, a warning tone in his voice.

“Why don’t we ever celebrate _your_ birthday? You know I know it’s coming up, I haven’t forgotten.”

“I don’t—“

“Come on, if you’re not going to do it for yourself, at least do it for Schmidt. You know how excited he gets, he still draws smiley faces all over your birthday on his desk calendar.”

 _“Jess,”_ Nick says exasperatedly. “I get to decide what I do on my birthday, okay? And what I choose to do is—nothing. I like it being just a normal day without the pressure to celebrate it. I go to work, I come home and hang out with you guys, I pour myself a couple of whiskeys. I don’t need more than that.”

“Okay. I just…” Jess sighs. “I guess I worry, you know?”

“About what?”

“I worry you don’t—feel like you’re special. Like you’re worth celebrating.” Jess gazes meaningfully at him.

“Well.” The corner of Nick’s mouth quirks upward. “Maybe sometimes I don’t, but…honestly? It’s enough that you think that.” Then he frowns and makes full-on Nick Face. “Maybe it really is just anxiety about getting older. God, can you imagine me when I’m like, eighty?”

“I think you’ll make a swell octogenarian,” Jess says loyally.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. Your body will finally have caught up with your soul.”

“Ha, ha, okay. Should’ve seen that one coming.”

Jess hesitates. “For what it’s worth?” she says, pulling her knees to her chest and locking her arms around them. She squints up to where the stars are peeking out from behind the clouds. “When I came out here, part of what I was thinking about was…even if you drive me bananas half the time, I’m really glad I met you.”

She said it fully expecting him to make some sarcastic remark in return—but to her surprise, she feels Nick’s hand curl gently around her wrist. “For what it’s worth,” he repeats. His voice is low and steady and sure, and for a second it’s like Jess can feel it inside her ribcage, like it’s tying the loose ends of threads together. “I’m glad I met you too.”

Jess grins and elbows Nick, and he elbows her back. Then she stands and grabs both his hands so she can pull him to his feet, and linking arms, they go back inside together.

**Author's Note:**

> tbh i've been dead inside fandom-wise for a while, but this show and these two goobers in particular revived my cold shriveled heart and i love them all for it. (also, i realize so many of the things i write end with what is essentially the line "to take a human hand, and go back into the house" from Stargazing by Glyn Maxwell, but what can you do.) 
> 
> thanks for reading. <3


End file.
